WHO Calls For Urgent Funding For TB Fight #WorldTBDay
On March 24, as the world commemorates World Tuberculosis Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is caling for an urgent investment of resources, support, care and information into the fight against tuberculosis (TB).
Progress towards reaching the 2022 targets set in the UN High Level Meeting political declaration and the WHO Director-General's Flagship Initiative Find.Treat.All is at risk - mainly due to a lack of funding. Between 2018-2020, 20 million people were reached with TB treatment. This is 50% of the 5-year target of 40 million people reached with TB treatment for 2018-2022. During the same period, 8.7 million people were provided TB preventive treatment. This is 29% of the target of 30 million for 2018-2022.
The situation is even worse for children and adolescents with TB. In 2020, an estimated 63 % of children and young adolescents below 15 years with TB were not reached with or not officially reported to have accessed life-saving TB diagnosis and treatment services - the proportion was even higher - 72% - for children under 5 years. Almost two thirds of eligible children under 5 did not receive TB preventive treatment and therefore remain at risk of illness.
WHO's new guidelines are a game changer for children and adolescents with TB. The newest TB medicines to treat drug resistant TB - Bedaquiline and Delamanid - are now recommended for use in children of all ages, including newborn babies. There is no longer a need for painful injections that can have serious side effects, including deafness.
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Africa:
Relief for Children as Painful Injections Removed From TB Treatment
allAfrica, 24 March 2022
Today, as the world commemorates World Tuberculosis Day, it is important to know that 24 March 1882 was the day Dr Robert Koch announced his discovery of the bacterium that causes… Read more »
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South Africa:
Are Long-Acting Injections the Future of TB Prevention?
spotlight, 23 March 2022
Injections given every three months have been used for years as one of a number of contraceptive options for women. More recently, an antiretroviral injection administered every… Read more »
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Nigeria:
Authorities, Partners Raise Concerns of Funding Gaps for TB Programs
VOA, 24 March 2022
On World Tuberculosis Day, Nigeria said cases of the disease increased by nearly 50 percent last year. At a summit Thursday to heighten awareness of the disease, health authorities… Read more »
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Africa:
UN Health Agency in Urgent Call to Reverse Gains Lost in Fight Against Tuberculosis
UN News, 23 March 2022
World TB Day is marked on 23 March, and this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for urgent investment in the fight against tuberculosis, "to save millions more… Read more »
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South Africa:
It Is Time to Invest in Ending TB in SA
spotlight, 23 March 2022
Each year the global community commemorates World TB Day on 24 March. On this day, 140 years ago, Robert Koch discovered the bacillus that causes tuberculosis. Amazingly, the… Read more »
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Africa:
On World TB Day Who Calls for Increased Investments Into TB Services and Research
WHO, 21 March 2022
Release of updated guidance on management of TB in children and adolescents Read more »
InFocus
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The Covid-19 pandemic hit South Africa's tuberculosis (TB) response early and hard, writes Tiyese Jeranji for Spotlight.
Between February and May 2020, Read more »
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has reaffirmed its commitment to support the country in eradicating Tuberculosis (TB), one of the top infectious killer diseases in the ... Read more »
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TB-PRACTECAL, a global clinical trial led by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has found that a new all-oral six-month treatment regimen is safer and more effective at treating ... Read more »
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The Stop TB Partnership has said that it notes with concern the data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of the 2021 Global Tuberculosis Report, which feat Read more »
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Tanzania's health minister Dorothy Gwajima has launched mobile health facilities that are aimed at multiplying efforts in the fight against TB. Gwajima received five mobile clinics ... Read more »
(file photo).